Ten top errant teenagers in fiction

Pinkie – the delinquent, disapproving, 17-year-old Brighton gangster – is referred to as “the boy”, but his “old eyes” are much feared. While his name and the novel’s title suggest innocence, it takes only a few pages to realise the twist in the symbolism. The boy, it quickly turns out, plays murder games for real. Pinkie’s attitudes to sin and morality are thought-provoking, his refusal to acknowledge his childhood desperately sad.